


5 time Harry Potter tried to die and the 1 time he did

by Justsmile2087



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 12:06:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16534247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justsmile2087/pseuds/Justsmile2087
Summary: The five times Harry decided he had enough and tried to die and then the one time he actually did.





	5 time Harry Potter tried to die and the 1 time he did

1\. 

Life had been pretty hard for Harry Potter. The first few years of his life with the Dursleys were probably the easiest and the hardest. 

Harder because all of a sudden his parents were replaced with indifferent and neglectful people that maybe could have been called guardians but were actually a closer approximation to monsters. There were new rules to learn; the necessary steps of defeating his fear of the dark; and learning to avoid the human-shaped beach ball that liked to attack; learning how to cook and clean and stay out of the way. 

Easier though, because he was unaware just how unusual and hateful his relatives were in their treatment. 

Then he started school and he had to relearn his name was Harry, and not 'Boy' and how to fit in without standing out. 

It was an embarrassing half a year before he finally realised that other families with more than one child treated both children the same way. 

Then he slipped up and mentioned his cupboard one day and by the time he returned home in the afternoon his uncle was livid with rage. Turns out the school, instead of contacting the proper authorities to look into his words, had instead rung his uncle at work. 

Vernon had managed to convince the school officials it was a cry for attention from a naughty little boy and it went nowhere. 

If Harry was asked to choose a day when he thought the neglect and verbal abuse changed to physical abuse, it would be this one. 

Life only got harder from there and there was no easier this time, as he was old enough to not only understand that what his uncle and aunt do was wrong, but that the adults at his school had also failed him. 

Life continued, however and despite the hardships thrown his way he persevered. He gave names to the spiders who invaded his cupboard. He learnt all the songs on the radio stations his aunt listened to so he could sing quietly to himself as he cleaned the house. He learned to love researching new recipes and cooking them, even if he rarely got to experience the food for himself. He grew fitter and faster, despite the limited food, so he could always escape his cousin during games of Harry Hunting. 

Then the letters came, and Hagrid, and Diagon Alley and for the first time Harry felt something he had never felt before. 

He felt hope. 

He was ecstatic to get away from the Dursleys. To discover a new part of himself that maybe made him a freak in his families eyes, but just like everyone else in this new world opened to him. 

He made friends, and enemies, played and broke records in quidditch and learnt some really cool magic. 

But as the end of the school year drew near, the hope in his chest was oppressed and weighed down by the looming thought of returning to the Dursleys. 

The idea of becoming a ghost and maybe haunting Hogwarts, the closest place to a home he could remember, became more and more appealing. 

So when McGonagall, like all the other adults in Harry's life, didn't listen to their fears about the stone he thought maybe this was his chance. 

The puzzles were thrilling and frightening and exactly what he was seeking. So much so that he found himself surprised, but not too sad, when he actually made his way through them unscathed. 

Then Quirrel revealed himself as possessed by Voldemort and after a brief interaction that involved the heavy weight of the stone falling into his pocket, Quirrelmort was approaching with the intent to kill. 

With the threat of an actual and very likely painful death, Harry had second thoughts and instead of succumbing to the inevitable, he fought back. 

When he woke in the hospital wing, he wasn't too terribly disappointed he had survived. He'd managed to save the day and the Weasley twins had sent him a Hogwarts toilet seat. 

Maybe life really was beginning to look up. 

 

 

2\. 

Second year started out awful. Summer with the Dursleys was worse than ever and cooped up in his room with nothing but empty soup cans and an increasingly irritable owl was beyond depressing. 

The Weasleys twins and Ron rescuing him after that awful disaster with the house elf was a breath of fresh air. Literally. 

The remaining summer days spent at the Weasley home was the best time of his life, and he found himself sad to return to Hogwarts as the first of September approached. 

Things only went downhill from there, made worse because he'd been given a glimpse of what life was like with a loving family. 

The whole parseltongue incident, the heir of Slytherin excitement and voices in the walls only served to re-settle the heavy weight of depression on an already tired mind. 

Then Hermione, despite being petrified and laid out in the hospital wing managed to show them the answer they were seeking and Harry thought that maybe he'd found his salvation. 

As the insanity around the castle grew, so did his depression and by the time Ginny was taken he was ready to dive head first into danger just to end it all. 

So he did just that. 

Ron insisted on bringing that useless lump of human flesh, Lockhart, but it worked out well for Harry in the end. He now had the chance to move forwards into danger without risking his friend’s wellbeing and maybe have the chance to rescue Ginny before he deliberately looked into the gaze of the basilisk, or just let it eat him. 

Things did not go to plan though. Somehow Voldemort was involved again and was possessing the poor girl. 

The fang in his arm was like a beautiful gift after all was said and done and he was just grateful he had enough time to stab the diary and rescue Ginny before he died. 

Then Fawkes flew down and started crying on him and exhausted after his battle he could do nothing but lie there and let it happen. 

When he woke again in the hospital wing, to the gratefulness of the whole Weasley clan, he ALMOST felt glad he'd lived. 

But the scar on his arm became a resentment, a physical reminder of just how impossible it was to die. 

 

 

3\. 

Third year started off just as badly as second year had. Only this time there were more of his tormenters in the form of Aunt Marge and her rotten dog. 

The usual barbs and insults he’d throw his families way to feel better, and that would go straight over the top of their heads, weren’t working. She was smarter than her brother and would simply bark back at him with insults he had no hope of retaliating to. 

Blowing her up, even accidentally, was an amazing form of payback for the first few seconds. 

Then common sense kicked in and he ran. 

That idiot Fudge letting him stay in Diagon Alley eased some of the heaviness in his chest just a little, and the first few days were spent with the run of the place and a smile on his face. By the time he realised maybe he should have taken advantage of this lapse in his security and maybe slip into Nocturne for a solution to his still alive issue, Old Tom had gotten his own routine sorted and Harry was never truly left alone. 

When Mr Weasley pulled him aside just before he boarded the Hogwarts train and told him about Sirius Black, an escaped mass murderer, he almost gave the whole thing away by smiling. Maybe he wouldn’t have to do anything this year. Maybe this Sirius fellow would take care of his problem for him. 

After all, Hogwarts was supposedly secure, but Voldemort had managed to get in twice. Who’s to say a mass murderer who went to the school wouldn’t know of some secret entrance and get in somehow. 

Then the train had stopped and the Dementors had boarded and all he felt was consumed by cold before a strange man shoved chocolate in his face then disappeared. 

Turns out the strange man was their new DADA professor and had known his parents. 

He was also a werewolf. 

And Sirius was innocent. 

And Ron had slept in his bed with a strange man in the form of a rat for YEARS. 

When Lupin had changed right in front of them, he felt both hope and fear and then Snape swooped in and Sirius and Pettigrew and the whole thing was an unbelievable shit show that he barely had a moment to breathe, let alone plan his demise. He gave up for another time. 

 

 

4\. The threat of an escaped felon coming to their house to check on the welfare of his Godson was enough that Harry’s holidays were almost pleasant. 

Lonely and full of resurrected games of Harry Hunting, but also bearable in their monotony. 

News of the Triwizard Tournament when he finally returned back to school made his heart thump in his chest until Dumbledore mentioned the age limit. 

Then his name was drawn from the hat anyway, and Ron decided to de-friend him, despite his protests that he hadn’t entered himself. 

Perhaps he would have been better believed if he was a little more vehement in his worry that such a tournament was surely to kill a lowly fourth year like him. 

When the first task was revealed to be dragons and he was given the idea to fly, Harry decided he would go out in a blaze of glory. He would fly better than he ever had before, live through this first challenge somehow, then just...not try. 

It went better than he could have planned and the exhilarating flight around the school with a dragon on his tail made him feel more alive than he ever had, or ever would. 

When the second task turned out to be in water, he was almost giddy with relief. He didn’t know how to swim and he had heard that drowning could be quite a pleasant way to go. Then that crazy house elf turned up again and practically forced the Gillyweed on him and he had no choice but to use it or face the suspicions of an already questionably intelligent being. 

The third task arrived and this was it. He would use whatever this maze had within it to end it all. Only after Fleurs vicious attack and Krum’s being Imperiused, he started to think that maybe Voldemort had managed to get involved again. 

The idea that maybe he’d get another crack at the madman before he died made him race toward the centre of the maze. If he’d been thinking a little more clearly, he wouldn’t have let Cedric grab the cup with him, it was so obviously a trap. 

Green light hitting the poor boy in the chest just moments after landing in the grave yard is what caused Harry to get caught. He was frozen, staring at what used to be a seventeen-year old Hufflepuff and only able to feel resentment that it wasn’t him lying there like a shell. 

Tied up and with a knife viciously slashed down his arm brought back some hope that maybe he would bleed out. 

Then a fight with the ugliest man he’d ever seen, and that included his uncle, and he raised his wand and shouted the weakest, first year spell he could think of. 

Only something happened, and he saw his parents and then Cedric begging him to take his body back to his parents. 

A deep sigh, and a heavier weight settling itself on his heart, and he fought his way out to grab Cedric and the port key. 

Turns out Moody was an imposter and all Harry could feel was resentment that Crouch hadn’t just killed him the numerous times they had been alone together. 

Waking up in the hospital wing once more, with the knowledge that a young man who had died and not him, who deserved it, only further added to his depression and it was a tired and weary Harry that returned to his relatives that summer. 

 

 

5.Nightmares plagued him that summer. Some of them Cedric and the Tournament, but most of them visions of Voldemort and the revelries he was participating in. 

There was not much to be done to stop it though. His Aunt had caught him tracing the scar from the grave yard with a kitchen knife and panicked. His uncle then beat the senses out of him and he was locked in his room with nothing but his mattress. 

The days were lonely and the nights long, and it was half a boy that finally returned to school at the end of the holidays. 

Ron was repentant for his attitude the year before and Harry didn’t care so he put a smile on his face and things returned back to almost normal. 

The psycho Umbridge toad was an interesting experience and he found himself deliberately provoking her in order to get more detentions. 

The saying might not have been something he’d have chosen himself, but Harry still felt a sense of macabre accomplishment as he carved deeper and deeper into his hand. 

Occlumency lessons with Snape were a disaster the first few times, but the fact that the man never picked up on his desire to die or the abuses he’d endured spoke volumes about his actual ability to occlude. 

Nights were still long and exhausting and depressing and it was actually easier to allow himself to fall into Voldemort’s visions than to face the nightmares that waited him most other nights. If he had known it was possible to plant false memories, he might have listened to Snape a little better. 

The battle in the ministry, and Sirius’ subsequent death, and the small amount of hope and family and friendship he’d managed to build with the man was gone. In its place was hurt and hatred and hopelessness. 

He’d just wanted to save Sirius and then die. 

The death of his Godfather, and Dumbledore’s explanations of Horcruxes and Prophesies lay heavy on an already overburdened soul and his desire to die became all consuming. He would find the Horcruxes, destroy them all and then kill himself. This would end the prophesy and someone else, stronger and better than he, could step in and kill Voldemort. 

 

 

1\. 

The hunt was a long and arduous task and tested friendships beyond all reasoning but eventually it was done. 

Standing across from the madman and watching the green light streak out from his wand brought a small smile to Harry’s face even as the battle raged heavily around him. 

When the light hit his chest, he could actually feel his heart just... stop... before peace slid over him and all grew dark. 

 

Waking up on a train platform to find an ugly infant like Voldemort laying under a bench and Dumbledore smiling at him was not what he was expecting. 

His conversation with the old man was equal parts eye-opening and infuriating and when a train pulled into the station Harry turned to ask. 

“What happens if I board the train?” 

“The start of your next great adventure,” Dumbledore had responded and Harry fell silent for several long minutes before he grimaced down and the Voldetroll and stood and offered his old headmaster a smile. 

“Well then, there’s really only way to go...”

**Author's Note:**

> For those reading my other story and wondering why I haven't posted in so long, I ask that you forgive me. I hate that I am one of those authors that I get grumpy with for writing a story then just stopping with no explanation or ending. Life happened, then work, then illness, then finally the computer I used for all my writings broke. I have yet to earn the funds to replace that computer. This work was hand written whilst on holiday and then typed up on my cheap, cracked screen, phone or my husbands computer when he wasn't using it.   
> I will try and write and then post on my other story within the next couple of weeks, but I can't provide a promise.   
> Justsmile :)


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